Ensamble del colgador hidráulico con SETTING COLLAR Y RPOB

The previous chapters have mostly discussed the first research question dealing with the top-to-bottom level of analysis that compared average student achievement of three school types with the ultimate aim of informing government policy about which school type to support. In contrast, the second research question addresses the bottom-to-top level of analysis and decision making where parents choose school(s) for their child(ren). The purpose of this chapter is to begin to answer the second research question – what role can Islam play in parental educational decision making110? A cultural stance is adopted so that decisions made at the top (represented by governance institutions i.e. school type) can be complemented by thought processes at the grass-root level (represented by cultural institutions i.e. religion). Doing so will allow two levels of interactions to be combined – one between the government and schools (described in previous chapters); and the second between schools and parents that will be described in this chapter. At the second level of interaction, parental decision making can be examined through a cultural institutions lens represented by religion111. This means that religion can possibly influence parents‘ desired education outcome(s) including education quality, school choice, social cohesion/identity formation, and/or anything else.

This chapter first discusses some research and policy literature regarding parental decision making, and religion in/and education to further expand on the concept of culture as

institutions in educational decision making/school choice. The second part of the chapter discusses the background of religion in education, especially in Pakistan. The last part of the

110 _{Educational decision making refers to school choice.} 111

chapter discusses the specific data and methodology used to analyze religion in educational decision making in this dissertation, thus providing the background for qualitative analysis in the following chapter.

5.1 - Religion and Educational Decision Making

This section has two main aims – it attempts to briefly discuss parental and household decision making in terms of school choice, and then it discusses religion in education in more detail. This implies that student achievement is not the only educational outcome that parents and students aim for, and hence this implication can influence education policy.

Parental Educational Decision Making

One of the arguments for increasing school choice in parental educational decision making is that given a certain amount of resources, increased specialization through school choice will increase efficiency in terms of producing higher achieving students. Supporting this argument, a study by Sawada and Lokshin (2001) on 25 villages in rural Pakistan uses both qualitative and quantitative techniques to analyze a household‘s schooling decisions. The authors find that conditional on school enrollment, there is a high retention rate and that at higher levels of education, progression rates of boys and girls converge. They also conclude that the reasons behind these findings are a household‘s assets affecting school choice, a student‘s academic performance, and supply restrictions for girls‘ education. In addition to high retention rates mentioned above, there is a possibility of students performing better academically if they are also

enrolled in schools that have their preferred learning styles or curriculum (Goldhaber, Showalter, & Eide, 2002).

However, it can be counter-argued that the more choice, more efficiency argument is more true for a country like the United States where school assignment is generally residence- based. In Pakistan, child enrollment does not depend on geographical location (except for

parental preferences of driving distance etc.) so that specialization already occurs. Conversely, if children are too young to act upon or even realize their educational preferences, their academic achievement will not necessarily increase if they go to, for instance, a secular versus more religious school.

It has also been argued that parents choose schools based on social rather than

educational needs so that specialized needs for achievement and talent are less significant than receiving a traditional education (Gordon, 1994; Lauder et al., 1994; OECD, 1994 etc.). Yet parental choice is still not considered the main driving force behind initiatives such as PPPs; instead, these initiatives are more supply side and government based (Gordon & Whitty, 1997).112 This makes this dissertation‘s second research question even more relevant because it can help to determine how exactly to incorporate parental choice in education policy. If parental choice is incorporated, it can possibly lead to a more diverse schooling system in terms of pedagogy, curriculum, and student body.113

112 _{For instance, in New Zealand, the government pays 50 percent of teachers‘ salaries in private schools, arguing} that private schools are more efficient and diverse (Gordon & Whitty, 1997). Moreover, in England, the government provides funding more to individuals than to institutions.

113 _{However, some studies, such as in England and Australia, have also found that choice leads to more} homogenization since schools tend to follow a similar pattern differentiated only by class and race (Blackmore, 1995).

Therefore, it seems that parents rationally derive satisfaction or utility when their children perform well in school in terms of academics, school completion, college admissions, and even religious training (McEwan & Carnoy, 2000). The higher the tuition and the larger the trade-off of education with other goods and services, the higher will be the opportunity cost of their children‘s schooling. Overall private utility can be maximized by obtaining the right trade-off between different educational outcomes and their opportunity cost. Given sufficient information about how well a school provides education through its resources and effort, it seems intuitive that parents will make rational decisions about enrolling their children in higher quality schools to increase their private utility. This can in turn lead the government to establish high quality PPP schools to increase social utility114.

However, according to Hirschman (1970), there can be lapses in rational behavior where consumers (parents in this case) seem loyal to a school with deteriorating education quality. These lapses in rational behavior can possibly be explained by economics if parents desire a different educational outcome. Where Levin‘s (1999) framework for goals of PPPs includes productive efficiency as shown by education quality measured through test scores, it is not necessarily true that parents choosing one school over another also aim for higher test scores. This implies that there could be a difference in goals between the government, schools, and parents (for instance, productive efficiency versus citizenship identity/social cohesion). This can also imply that there could be a difference in social versus private utility of education where parents are more likely to focus on their private utility, which in turn can be derived from non- quality aspects of education.

114 _{Social utility also increases when for-profit private schools aiming at profit maximization and non-profit or} religious private schools aiming at high enrollment or administrative benefits (McEwan & Carnoy, 2000) can achieve their objectives through government PPP subsidies.

The mechanism behind parents choosing schools not based on education quality can be derived from institutions at an individual level. Chapter one defined culture as one aspect of these institutions. Culture further consists of social capital and norms. Manski (2000) argues that in order to more clearly describe social capital and norms, the concept of social interactions from an economic perspective can be used115. According to him, the economics of social interaction is unique because it brings together various decision makers (agents) with different preferences, expectations, and constraints. Instead of assuming utility maximization, decision making can be thought of as the result of social interaction through not only observing another agent‘s actions, but also through observing and gathering information about his/her preferences. In the context of this dissertation, social interaction can be related to how parents interact with each other to gather information about each other‘s decisions and expectations from schools and then choosing schools for their child(ren). This is especially true since members of one group tend to have similar opinions and behavior (Manski, 2000). For instance, if the context of choosing schools is a Muslim majority society, another context is different socio-economic classes within the

Muslim majority society in Punjab, Pakistan. Arguably, these socio-economic classes will have similar preferences within each class. Manski (2000) also argues that instead of making perhaps inaccurate inferences about observed preferences and expectations of agents, ―subjective‖ data can be collected from these agents themselves. Again, this is related to the idea - which is not common in traditional economics - that decision makers can make rational decisions and express them truthfully. As part of an exercise to collect this ―subjective‖ data, my second research question adopts a qualitative approach.

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The specific cultural context in which I attempt to situate the institutional processes of educational decision making spreads across Punjab – religion. This is possible if parents aim towards raising children who have a strong religious identity and/or have an opportunity to receive moral and ethical education. In this sense, they can even be willing to compromise quality of education by enrolling their children in schools that focus more on religion than on student achievement.116 Moreover, according to Manski‘s (2000) idea of social interaction leading to similar preferences and decision making, parents‘ focus on improving their children‘s ethics and religious identity through education can even be extended to PPP‘s goal of social cohesion. Whether or not, and to what extent religion as a cultural institution is a factor in

allowing parents to choose schools is the second level of interaction this dissertation focuses on. From the above discussion, it seems that at a more grass root level of interaction, religion is a form of cultural institution that is theoretically used to produce an educational outcome depending on parental preferences (perhaps ethics, religious identity, and social cohesion) and parents‘ interaction among themselves and with schools. The next section discusses religion in education from both a PPP choice and policy standpoint in order to lay the background for relating educational decision making with religion in the context of Punjab, Pakistan.

Religion in Education

As mentioned in chapter 1, religion can be included in the definition of culture. Religion in education (and in other social services) has always been common, even in societies that aim for secular public education and attempt to not support any one religious group (Minow, 2003).

116 _{When it comes to PPP goals, basing school choice on religion can be related to school choice (so that parents at} least have an option to choose from a diverse group of schools).

For instance, in the early twentieth century in the United States, even seemingly secular reforms had a religious background. These reforms have historically often been disguised as insurance or vouchers to conform to social norms; however, now the U.S. government is beginning to fund religious organizations (not just religious schools) as well as places of worship (Minow, 2003). The argument is that this policy incorporates small denominations that would otherwise be neglected. Religious schools are aided because of the government‘s desire for subcontracting or providing subsidies (such as through PPPs). In other words, borders between the public and private, and religious and secular, are blurred by the government so that they are ―never sharp‖ (Minow, 2003, p. 1254). However, unlike the U.S., this is not true for Pakistan yet where religion in mainstream public and private education is not officially supported or even considered by the government although religion is often otherwise used by the Ministry of Religious Affairs to approve or disapprove policies (Rahman & Bukhari, 2004).

Religion in education has been examined through both quantitative and qualitative research. As a measure of culture, religion can be seemingly irrational. However, Berman and Stepanyan (2004) argue that this seemingly irrational behavior by a religious sect can be considered rational behavior in an economic sect. Berman‘s (2000) extension of Iannaccone‘s (1992) proposed rational choice behavior of religious groups can help to explain low returns to religious schooling.117 This argument is described in more detail below.

In the rational choice framework of religious sects, the basic economic context assumes a competitive market. Secular behavior is assumed to be more prevalent than religious behavior

117 _{These low returns to schooling were described earlier in the introduction section in terms of lower economic} growth in Catholic and Muslim majority countries.

although a policy maker can subsidize religious behavior to increase it.118 Within this proposed economic setting, externalities arise from Muslim as well as Jewish sects who play a ―role of charity in providing medical insurance‖ (Berman & Stepanyan, 2004, p. 6). However, religious sects can also impose restrictions on consumption of certain secular goods, which can act as taxes on these secular goods. This induces religious sect members to replace secular good consumption with religious activities, which they assume leads to positive externalities. Another way of describing this optimal tax rate is the opportunity cost of potential wages in the secular market, which can rise if the wage rate increases. This opportunity cost can vary from family to family and individual to individual partly depending on education so that schooling decisions are important to analyze.

The optimal tax rate will also separate those who will undermine the quality of religious practice from those who will maintain or improve it. In the case of religious schooling,

attendance is practiced by those who have low wages (Berman & Stepanyan, 2004) so that there is a low level of sacrifice that is required. In effect, religious schools separate low wage

individuals from high wage ones. This can be tested by comparing the low returns to religious schooling versus secular schooling in terms of future earnings.

Therefore, a rational choice framework for religious sects shows that it is possible to place religious behavior in an economic setting in addition to the more conventional setting of spirituality (for instance, Peshkin, 1988). However, this behavior deals only with religious schools. What is the case if there are public schools or PPP schools that somehow incorporate religion in their teaching or structure? Dronkers and Robert (2008) attempt to provide an answer

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to this question by conducting a cross-sectional study (Dronkers, 2004) on comparing student achievement in U.S. religious state-funded schools (an example of a PPP school) and public schools. On one hand, Dronkers (2004) finds that students in private, state-funded schools perform better on scholastic tests than students in public schools. On the other hand, Lubienski and Lubienski (2006) find lower student performance in religious, private schools than in public schools. However, Dronkers and Robert (2008) argue that it is important to further study religion in education because it is yet unclear if higher achieving students in private state-funded schools also perform better in terms of moral and religious attitudes. Besides relevant well-defined quantitative data, this also requires a qualitative analysis, which I am conducting through this dissertation.

Similar to Berman and Stepanyan (2004), Mocan and Tekin (2002) situate their

framework in a rational economic behavior model (such as behavioral economics; O‘Donoghue & Rabin, 2001 as quoted in Mocan & Tekin, 2004). Examining religion, ethics, and good behavior instead of student test scores, Mocan and Tekin (2002) use Catholic schools in their analysis and measure the associations between schooling and good/bad behavior using indicators such as drug use, sexual behavior, property crimes, gang membership, suicidal attempts, and running away from home. They find that Catholic school attendance increases the probability of using and selling drugs by male students but reduces the probability of drug use and sexual activities for female students. They argue that like adults, teenagers also make rational decisions about good or bad behavior even if their decisions can differ from those of adults because of contrasting preferences and time discount rates. Another example of non-academic behavior is Levin and Belfield (2003) who show a positive association between Catholic school attendance

and civic skills, tolerance, political knowledge, and community participation. Figlio and Ludwig (1999) offer some reasons why this positive association exists – religious education can change student preferences; Catholic (and other religious) schools can have more strict discipline; and in turn, this can lead to a ―better‖ peer group (Mocan and Tekin, 2002, p. 6).119

The paper by Mocan and Tekin (2002) is especially significant because it touches on another aspect of PPPs - the school choice debate since vouchers are a type of PPP aimed at providing choice among schools to students and parents. However, these vouchers are mostly used for enrollment in religious schools leading to controversy within communities and policy circles in terms of using public finance to support institutions with a particular belief system. In the United States, this debate has occurred at all government levels including the Supreme Court. Part of the issue was that through using vouchers, religious schools might force students to behave in certain religious ways that they would not have done otherwise (Minow, 2003).

In Pakistan, which is a much less religiously diverse state than England or Australia (96 percent of Pakistan‘s population is Muslim; CIA World Factbook, 2010), such a controversy might not arise unless the objective of the social and policy network is to maintain a strictly secular society. In this sense, PPPs that cater towards the social capital of a society, will ideally take into account whether or not religion in education is acceptable and/encouraged by society. Moreover, various religious sects (such as Shiia and Sunni) can have differing opinions and attitudes that might be important to take into account before forming and implementing any policy regarding PPPs120. However, Minow (2003) argues that even if finance and/or

119 _{All of these are components of and can lead to social capital (Levin, 1999), which is one of the goals of PPPs.} 120 _{Look in Appendix D for table on schools belonging to various sects.}

management go into private hands through the establishment of PPPs or privatization in general, consumers are considered passive and not active, thoughtful citizens. This can counter the effect of allowing or supporting schools to include religion in education because if they have passive parents and students as consumers, schools will not necessarily make independent decisions regarding, for instance, its curricula (especially if they cater towards different religious sects). This can also counter the choice mechanism that assumes schools to vie for more consumers. The way religion plays a role in Pakistan‘s schools is discussed below.

Islam is in the limelight in contemporary times largely because of its political role on many fronts including security and religious education institutes (REIs) (Stern, 2000, as quoted in Rahman & Bukhari, 2004). Many believe that the rise in anti-West and anti-American sentiments is because of the doctrinal teachings in REIs in Muslim majority countries including Pakistan (Singer, 2001). Singer (2001) mentions a ―role reversal between the public sphere and private radical groups‖ (Singer, 2001, p. 4) where both insufficient public education121 and